The Drew Scheme or The Advice Receiver: A Memoir-Novella of the Nineteen-Forties

Deborah Dowson is a children’s librarian in Pickering, Ontario.

In 1947, the Ontario government chartered planes and subsidized airfare
to encourage British immigrants to come to Canada. In this book, a young
Englishwoman plans to emigrate and, being reluctant to journey alone,
convinces a girlfriend to join her. The story of their life during and
after the war, and their arrival and adjustment to life in Canada, is
the subject of this “Memoir-Novella of the Nineteen-Forties.”

The narrator deeply regrets, and feels morally responsible for, what
happens to her friend after coming to Canada. The woman, whose
engagement to a dubious character 20 years her senior is broken, finds a
lasting love relationship with another woman. Although the author
writes, “The last I heard of them, they had a house, a car, a dog and
a cat, and presumably lived happily ever after,” she judges this to be
a reprehensible moral failure and sums up her friend’s life as a
“struggle ending in failure.”

The narration of facts and speculations in this book are superficial
and do not convey deeper human motivations behind the mundane details of
travel, lodging, and employment. The conversational style suggests that
there is little or no distance between author and narrator, and very
little fiction to enhance the truth or add interest and depth to the
plot and the characters. The honesty with which the author/narrator
reveals her personal judgments suggests that this book is principally a
memoir. It is fascinating that the author/narrator is seemingly unaware
of her homophobic bias, class consciousness, and contempt for “lower
classes.” The moral fabric may be reflective of the 1940s, but the
author is writing in retrospect and sincerely holds these opinions
today. The book is also marred by frequent typographical errors.